Best Riverside DUI Attorneys –

I lived in Ann Arbor in 1980 and went to traffic court to fight a parking ticket. The rigged system there involved driving while intoxicated cases. My case was number three on the docket, but I had to sit through five DWI cases, because cases with lawyers always went first. If you had a lawyer, the DWI charge was automatically reduced to driving while impaired, and the judge imposed the minimum penalties. The local lawyers charged $1500-2000 to walk into court with the accused and secure the reduced penalties.

I saw one driving while intoxicated case where the accused had no lawyer. The judge told him to come back with a lawyer or receive the maximum penalties (which I believe were a $1500 fine, loss of license for a year, and 3 months of community service for a first offense). I was astonished at the openness of the corruption. I assumed that the judge received a kickback from the lawyers for each DWI case.

Cindy,

We will certainly have to chalk this up a disagreement.

In my opinion there is no such thing as privacy in public places. Whether it is a conversation, running a stop light, speeding in a school zone, driving while intoxicated, court proceedings, defining the word is, etc. This isn't some new found religion. I have had this discussion off line many times before.

Years before such technological advances this was a topic of much discussion. To me it is the same thing – over heard in a bar by two or more people and repeated ie “Me and Martin O'Malley” or on a video camera.

I ran your scenario on my BAC calculator – which is always an estimate.
10 hours (11 beers 2 shots) and came up with .131

3 beers less would have been .073
5 beers less would have been .035

The calculator only goes up to 10 hours. You typically lose .015 per hour so if you had waited four more hours you would have been under the .08 DUI level waited a total of 7 more hours and you would have been under the DWAI level .05

Some law enforcement agencies have special officers who handle Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST). The first officer finds someone suspected of being DUI and has the specialist come out to handle the SFST. If the second officer was indeed one of the specialist your DUI attorney and the prosecutor probably already know about him and how good he is or isn't. These specialists rarely lose and the district attorney usually feels more confident with not giving you a typical plea bargain that they give for the non-specialist officers – so you penalty will be worse than the average impaired driver who gets a non specialist officer to adminster the SFST.

The SFST are rarely administered under ideal conditions unless they take you to a police station and perform them inside. The officer can take the ground considerations in to his overall assessment of your mental impairment.

Stumbling is not the only indicator of being DUI. Other pre-SFST observations an officer may include are; breath, face, eyes, speech, hand movements, vehicle exit, walking, unusual actions, attitude and clothing.

For me the most reliable test of the SFST is the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus – you would have at least scored 4 out of 6, if not a full 6 out of 6 on this test.

In the one leg stand test the following count against you; sway, raise arms, hops, put foot down. You can be scored from 0-4 (4 is the worst)

In the 9 step walk and turn the following count against you; stops walking, misses heel-toe, steps off line, raises arm. When you do the first 9 steps each of the above count against you, on the return 9 steps each could count against you again doubling your score, also counting against you is can not keep balance and begins walking too soon (score 0-10).

The national average (non-specialist officer) who performs these 3 SFSTs is 91% accurate in determining if the suspect is over the .08 legal limit. In my office I conducted a one month study of every DUI arrest for every officer utilizing only the HGN score and found it was accurate in 100% of the cases – where a breath or blood test was administered. We have very strict standards with required quarterly trainings.

Other tests you may have taken included saying the alphabet forward and/or counting backwards.
Also finger to nose and the Romberg test. These also can help the office decide if their is probable cause to request a chemical test under your state's laws on express consent or implied consent.

Because you weren't arrested by the police to be questioned there would be no Miranda warning given (some of the poorly researched TV shows have the police giving the Miranda Warning to everyone they put in hand cuffs – which is obviously not required under the court decision)

Typically drunk drivers (don't feel drunk) the tests are designed to document mental impairment which would affect your ability to drive safely.

Hope this helps answer some of your questions.

Anson,
At some point, a collection of folks with a passionate interest in issues does make a difference. See: labor unions, for instance. I agree that things like determining the level of illegal intoxication should be decided dispassionately, through science, but there would be no DUI laws at all, if it weren't for the folks who have suffered from a widespread laxity.
By the way, I'll bite. I have to ask. What does this sentence mean:

And I “loved” his beautiful wife who was “looped”.

Curious Duane]]>